Proposition 8

I feel compelled to post the follow email I received. I have never met Celeste because we don’t live in the same city, however, I have heard so much about her. I am very fond of her mother as she is a dear friend and I consider her family.

I have been blessed to grow up in a non-sheltered environment and have friends from different walks of life. One thing has always been very clear to me, in the matters of love one can’t choose based on race, religion, ethnicity, color, or gender. I believe that a love based on who fits the right category is not true love but conditional love. I also believe that the more we categorize ourselves, the more we drive ourselves apart from each other.

I think people should be free to be and marry whomever they want because such a decision must be based on love.

I hope Celeste’s candid words will prompt you to think about the importance of voting no on preposition 8 in California.

My daughter Celeste, who is 35, wrote this letter and wishes to have me forward it to my friends. Some of you know her and will recognize the voice of the lovely woman she is, some do not know her, but can imagine that having her as my daughter is a gift.

You might not agree with her, but I must say her words ooze with gentleness.

Please feel free to forward it .

May you vote wisely

Irene XXXXX

Dear Family-

I wanted to reach out to you in these 30 days before the upcoming
election. These are my original words. I am not following the directive
of a letter-writing campaign led by another organization. I am following
my own personal directive to let you know how your vote on this issue not
only affects thousands of Californian families, but how it will affect me,
and thus, how it will affect OUR FAMILY – the
xxx/xxxx/Cxxxxx/x/xxxx/xxxx/xxx.

Proposition 8 calls for a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Same-sex marriage was recently made legal in California by a State Supreme
Court decision this last spring, making our state one of two (including
Massachusetts) that grant this right. Soon after the decision was handed
down and made into law, opponents of same-sex marriage mobilized to put
Proposition 8 on the November ballot. This is a contraversial and
polarizing issue.

I am blessed to have so much family in California. I know that we may not
all agree on politics and on social or ethical issues, but I know that we
are all intelligent and compassionate, and I know that I love you all very
much.

Here’s how Proposition 8 affects me, and how it affects us all. As most
of you know, I have been in loving relationships with women in the past.
I also have been in loving relationships with men. Take it from me – the
love is the same. The commitment is the same. The responsibilities are
the same. The compassion is the same. The problems are the same. Two
men or two women cannot “naturally procreate”, but more and more so,
same-sex couples have children, and provide for them as heterosexual
couples do.

Mom and Dad raised me outside of any church, but within a household of
strong ethics. When I was growing up, I didn’t know all that many gay
people, and those that I did know (all men) seemed destined to perpetual
bachelorhood – they didn’t seem quite “real”, and it was so easy to think
that they were different and strange. It was only in University that I
became more aware of my capacity to love both men and women, and that I
thus became aware of the fundamental equality in loving either sex.

We are alive at a time when not only are gays, lesbians and bisexuals more
visible in society, but with that visibility, comes an acknowledgement
that like the rest of heterosexual society, we are complex, nuanced people
who cannot simply be defined by our sexual preferences.

We are just as able to be smart or stupid, bad or good, selfless or greedy
as anyone else in society. We’ll be just as competent (or incompetent) at
handling the responsibilities of marriage. We’ll be just as good (or as
bad) at parenting, and at taking responsibility for our spouse’s families.
If we are not given the right to marry, we will never have the full
resources to provide for and to protect our families.

Some of my family may have moral convictions against homosexuality. I do
not know for sure since I have only had the opportunity to share this part
of my life with some of you. I dont want to strong-arm you into dropping
your convictions. Just recognize that someone in our family (myself) has
loved people of the same sex, and feels no different from her friends and
family for it. I am proud to be who I am, and will be even more proud if
I know that you love me for who I am.

Rather, I want to encourage those of you who have moral reservations
against homosexuality to not take your convictions out at the ballot box.
If you vote for banning same-sex marriage, you are voting for government
intrusion on individuals’ privacy. You are affirming the State’s “right”
to enforce a moral agenda that is not universal to all religions. This,
in my mind, violates the fundamental separation of Church and State in
this country.

I would like for this e-mail or letter to reach all of the family in this
State. Please feel free to forward to whomever I have missed, especially
if they are a California voter, or to pass this along to others. Also,
please feel free to respond to me. If you disagree with my position, I am
able to listen to your side with compassion. I hope that if you are a
registered California voter, that you will vote NO on Propostion 8 in
November. Regardless of what you do, I will always love you!

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Love,
Celeste XXXX

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5 Responses

Dear Celeste,
I do not know the history much.
Did The word marriage was written into the law just for women and man or not ?
If the answer yes, then same sex people have to make their own whatever you want to call it.
And put it on the ballot, create your own words to define same sex marriage.
So you did not bother other.
But I agree onething, Was marriage license still needed anymore ?
Government no longer issuing marriage licence is the best way to solve this issue.

I personally don’t agree with coming up with a new word idea, it defeats the whole purpose. A marriage takes place when two people make a commitment to share their life together. I think people need to stop telling others what they can or cannot do. I am willing to bet anything I have that if tables were turned those same people would not appreciated being told how to live their lives and for others to dictate what they can or cannot do.

I have emailed your comment to Celeste’s mom, whom I trust will forward to her.

Celeste’s letter conveniently failed to mention, that prior to the California’s Supreme Court decision, the overwhelming majority of Californians had already spoken in accurately defining the definition of Marriage in another preposition, and the arrogant four activist CASC Justices imposed their will on the people and struck down their 4 million majority votes.

Preposition 8 is the catalyst that made the people of California to take a decisive action against rampant ‘judicial activism’, by courts who continually override the will of the people.

Marriage between a man and woman had been society’s sacred institution throughout human existence and it’s sanctity should be preserve. And redefining it to suit one of the gay militant agendas of shoving their chosen lifestyle into America’s psyche is just the foot in the door in what their real plans are for the future generations of this great nation, to make everyone accept and follow their Gay lifestyle. And it is happening now.

Case in point: The Parker Family case in Massachusetts
where a Father is being jailed, and now being prosecuted for other trump up charges, for protecting his son from gay & lesbian school indoctrination by the Boston School district

Same-sex couples who register as domestic partners in California already have virtually all the state-level rights, benefits and obligations that married couples do, thanks to a series of domestic partnership laws passed by the CA Legislature. So why do Gays still wants to change the definitions when they have the same benefits as married couples do? See above.

What is the use of marriage in the first place? and what business is it of the government how people decide to live their lives? To quote Doug Stanhope, ” No one has ever said to their love interest ‘this thing we have together is so good we gotta get the government in on this, man they have to endorse this.'” And what is so sacred about this institution anyways? Is it that half of all marriages end? or is it the fact that two people have entered into a written, legal, binding contract to maintain a specific emotion? NO. The sacred part of marriage does not come in the ritual of binding or committing to each other, but comes in the daily activities of the two partners. The appreciation of each other, the closeness felt through contact of flesh, mind, and spirit that is the sacred the government authorization is a mere formality, ie. superfluous. All of this is an over reaction to allowing the state to collect more fees from homosexuals, personally I don’t see that as a big worry or drain on the state. It is none of my business how others wish to engage in their romantic life, nor is any of theirs how I engage in mine. Those of you that are so worried about your “sacred” institution should find something more productive to do with your time, such as investigate whether America is consuming too much processed corn products as a people. Now that is a true epidemic in this country.